r Cambyses and Darius to
her maximum growth--for half the thirteen decades expanding
steadily. Then she touched Greece, where a younger cycle was
rising, and recoiled. She should have been at high tide precisely
three years before-Marathon--a half-cycle after the accession of
Cyrus, or in 493;--and was. Then the Law-pronounced its _Thus
far and no further;_ and enforced it with Homer's songs, and
Greek valor, and Darius' death, and Xerxes' fickle childishness
(he smacked the Hellespont because it was naughty). These things
together brought to naught the might and ambition and bravery of
Iran; but had they been lacking, the Law would have found other
means. Though Xerxes and Themistocles had both sat at home doing
nothing, Alexander would still have marched east in his time,
and Rome conquered the world. So discount all talk of Greece's
having saved Europe, which was never in danger. But you may say
Persia saved Greece: that her impact kindled the fires--was used
by the Law for that purpose--which so brilliantly have illumined
Europe since.

Persia rose in the evening of that West Asian manvantara; the
empires of its morning and noon, as Assyria chiefly, had been
slower of growth, longer of life, smaller of expanse; and for her
one, had several periods of glory. A long habit of empire
-building had been formed there, which carried Persia rapidly and
easily to her far limits. Assyria, the _piece de resistance_ of
the whole manvantara, with huge and long effort had created, so
to say, an astral mold; of which Persia availed herself, and
overflowed its boundaries, conquering regions east and west
Assyria never knew. But if she found the mold and the habit
there to aid her, she came too late for the initial energies of
the morning, or the full forces of the manvantaric noon. Those
had been wielded by the great Tiglath Pilesers and Assurbanipals
of earlier centuries; fierce conquerors, splendid builders,
ruthless patrons of the arts. What was left for the evening and
Persia could not carry her outward her full thirteen decades, but
only half of them: sixty-five years her tides were rising, and
then she touched Greece. Thence-forward she remained stationary
within her borders, not much troubled internally, until the four
-twenties. To a modern eye, she seems on the decline since
Marathon; to a Persian of the time, probably, that failure on
the Greek frontier looked a small matter enough. A Pancho Villa
to